Product Management Handbook

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A white label product management handbook for government digital services

View the Project on GitHub scottcolfer/product-management-handbook

A note on product leadership roles and career progression

Product leadership is in its infancy. Product leadership roles and career progression is highly variable as a result. Associate Product Manager to Product Manager is a fairly consistent career pathway but, in all honesty, all bets are off from that point onwards. Use and implementation of Senior Product Manager, Lead Product Manager, and Head of Product is highly variable for a lot of reasons, here are just a few:

You only need to take a look at the Mind the Product Jobs board to see this variation.

What’s the point of this observation? This handbook will focus on product leadership as a single ‘thing’ and share guidance that’s (hopefully) useful whether you’re a Senior Product Manager, Lead Product Manager, or a Head of Product - with limited space dedicated to Senior Product Manager, Lead Product Manager, and Head of Product as individual roles.